Absence
by no white horse for me
Summary: After Ron leaves in DH, Hermione finds something of Ron's that helps her hurt less, but his absence weighs down on both of them - RonxHermione implied ONE-SHOT


**Hiya! So, here is yet another one-shot, and it's kind of sad, but I like it. Hope you enjoy it, and the next chapter of _Past, Present and Future_ will be up as soon as I can! Happy New Year everyone!  
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She calls him. She shouts after him, and he doesn't stop. "Ron, please, stop!" She shouts, making a wild dive for his hand, but he wrenches back. She drops to her knees in the mud, and he stares down at her with a mixture of disgust and fear. "You...you can't go." She sobs, barely audible over the heavy rain that drums around them, but they are oblivious.

"You've made your choice, Hermione." He spits, and more tears spill over her lashes.

"He's my best friend! I can't leave him, Ron, I promised him!" She moans, and he continues to stare down at her, unflinching.

"Oh, you promised him! Did you now?" Ron scoffs; his lip curls back in a snarl. "You've got one last chance, Hermione. You can come with me, or stay here with Harry. Make a choice." He can't be making her choose. She won't choose – she _can't_. He's making her choose between her best friend and the man she loves. She can't do it.

"Please, don't make me pick!" Hermione sobs, pushing herself to her feet, her knees stained with mud. She feels it as it drips down her legs and onto her bare feet. She can't feel her toes, but she likes it, because the shocking cold makes her realize that this is real – this is not a daydream, or a nightmare, but cold, hard reality.

"It seems like I don't have to." He hisses, his dark blue eyes full of hurt. He pivots on his heel, and Hermione feels unknown anger boil up inside her.

"So, that's it, is it?" She shrieks at him, and he comes to a standstill. "Just leaving, are you? Don't you care about Harry? Or me? Don't you care that you're leaving us now, when we need you most? When _I _need you most? Or does that not matter to you? Running from your problems, are you?" he turns to her, fire in his eyes, but she doesn't relent, she doesn't give in – she is a Granger, dammit, and she will not back down. "Fine, then go! Run back to your mother and hide from your problems. But you know what, Ronald Weasley? You – can't – hide – forever!" By this point, she has marched up to him and is smacking him as hard as she possibly can. He catches her wrists in a death grip and forces them to her side.

"When...will...you understand...that I...that I...that I love you?" She croaks out, dropping her head so that he can't see the tears trooping down her cheeks, leaving faint glimmers of moisture.

"Oh, Hermione, I love you too." He whispers, and her head snaps up, eyes full of fire.

"No, you don't!" She yells, ripping free of him and jabbing him in the chest with her finger. "Because if you did, you wouldn't be leaving me! Fine, then go! Just leave now! I never want to see you again, ever! Get away from me, and stay away!" she has broken into tears, but she will not back down until he is far away from here.

He glares at her, hatred in those eyes she loves so much, and then he turns, marches beyond the wards, and she watches as he looks one last time at where he thinks the tent is, spins on his heel, and disappears with a loud, resounding _crack!_ She stares at the spot where he was, and then drops to her knees, curling her fingers into the soaked grass. "He's gone. He's gone." She mumbles to herself, to clarify. She should get in from the cold, from the rain, back inside where it is warm and dry and welcoming.

But she doesn't want to, for inside that tent holds too many memories, good and bad. It holds too many reminders of Ron. But she scrambles to her feet anyway and bursts through the canvas, where Harry stands.

"He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!" She throws herself into an armchair, curls up into a ball, and cries. She can sense Harry, but she doesn't know what to do. She listens as he bends down and grabs the Horcrux, slips it over his neck, grabs blankets and drapes them over her. At first, she is tempted to kick them off, but then she stops.

They're Ron's blankets.

She buries her face into them and lets her tears seep into the soft fabric as she breathes him in, letting the smell clog her lungs, fill her up on the inside. Her numb fingers grip the blankets and she wraps them more tightly around her skinny frame. She continues to cry into the blankets until she rises shakily to her feet – Harry is asleep – and manages to unwind the blankets. As she moves to drop them onto Ron's bunk, a flash of maroon stops her, and she brushes her hand against soft wool. She wraps her hand around the sleeve of whatever it is and pulls it from the tangle of blankets. She nurses the thing in her hands as more tears drip down her cheeks.

It's Ron's jumper.

She crumbles the wool in her hands, twisting and knotting, until finally she can't take it, and she tugs the thing over her head. It's much too big for her, but she pulls the sleeves down her arms and wraps them around her skinny fingers as she crosses her arms over her chest and sits on her bunk bed. She crosses her legs and drops her head, keeping her arms firmly over her chest. "Oh, Ron, I'm so sorry." She whispers, leaning backward onto her pillow. She lies there silently, listening to Harry's breathing, and, almost out of habit, she listens for Ron's soft snores. But she is met with silence. She lies there until a sliver of light seeps in from outside, and she crawls to her feet, tiptoeing over to the kitchen, where she immediately starts on breakfast.

Harry awakes sometime after her, and as he comes into the kitchen, she does not wish him good morning, but instead quickly averts her eyes – she doesn't want him to see the tear marks running down her cheeks. They eat breakfast in dead silence, and she refuses to look at Harry, even though she knows he can tell she didn't sleep and has been crying all night. When she is done, she rises to her feet and sweeps both plates into her arms, even though she knows Harry isn't done. But he doesn't protest, instead allows her to take them and finishes the bit of toast he is working on – that he has been for a good 10 minutes.

They are trying desperately to pass of a factor of normality; that everything is okay, that Ron's missing presence has gone unnoticed, but they are failing miserably. The air between the two is crackling with tension, and Hermione's headache is beating against the back of her skull like a heartbeat, a constant reminder that he is not there. And she feels incomplete, like someone has ripped half her soul out and tossed it away. And she comes to a startling epiphany.

Because he is not there, she is not there either.

And Harry acts as though he doesn't care, even though she knows he does – even though he notices Ron's absence as much as she does. But Harry continues his stony silence, and she doesn't contribute, because she knows that if she opens her mouth, she will break down again, and she will not be able to stop. And through Harry's silence, she notices that she is still wearing Ron's jumper, and as soon as she notices this, she feels a little bit comforted, like she is wearing a slice of him. She wants him home, she wants him with her. Because he completes her, he makes her feel better than she ever does when he's not there. Because he is her second half, he is the little piece that makes her who she is.

And without him, she is nothing.


End file.
